Cheiron's Way aims to define and examine ‘education’ as represented in literary texts from Homer to tragedy. Through a detailed study of the Iliadic Achilles, it proposes an ideal model for an educational process that moves from early training in life skills (especially hunting and military) and ethical behaviour (e.g. aidos and sophrosyne), guided by hypothekai (injunctions), gnomai (hortatory maxims) and paradeigmata (exemplary tales), through two ‘crises’ involving disillusionment and empathy. Among the figures studied, only Iphigeneia and Achilles in Euripides’ Iphigeneia in Aulis also complete this process (although other critics have offered a less romantic view of this play's conclusion). All others, including Telemachus in the Odyssey, Ajax in Sophocles’ Ajax, Neoptolemus in Sophocles’ Philoctetes, Hippolytus in Euripides’ Hippolytus, ultimately fail to grow into fully mature, compassionate and resolute adults by this standard.

The book reflects G.’s many years of teaching at Smith College and is tailored to a general audience. From my own teaching experience, I would say that the insights arrived at here from close reading of the texts would reflect discussions in a thoughtful undergraduate class. Less predictable would be the analysis of Telemachus’ growth in the Odyssey and Neoptolemus’ evolution in Sophocles’ Philoctetes. Telemachus’ failure to align himself with his father's plans in the punishments offered to the unfaithful maidservants or with his punishment of Melanthius the unfaithful swineherd plays a central role in G.’s detailed study of the complex and initially uneasy father–son relation. Similarly, Neoptolemus reveals a darker and more guileful and self-interested side that makes his pity of Philoctetes look generally less genuine than in most analyses.

Using the Iliadic Achilles to define a failed process of recognition and education in many of the tragedies proves in my view to be a somewhat problematic strategy. I would agree that Achilles experiences disillusionment, followed by withdrawal, reconsideration of the heroic code and human mortality, a turn to uncontrolled violence, and finally a move towards empathy for Priam that eventuates in his being able to offer wise advice. (Achilles’ maturity displayed in the funeral games of Book 23 is not included in this discussion.) The Homeric code does weigh mortality against the compensations of status, privilege and fame (e.g. Sarpedon to Glaucus at Iliad 12.322–8). Achilles in Book 9 puts a much stronger emphasis on mortality. Yet G.’s view does not fully embed this new emphasis on mortality sufficiently in the context of his first speech as a whole. The offer made by Agamemnon, as scholars such as W. Donlan (Political Reciprocity in Ancient Greece [1998], and earlier articles) or T.O. Beidelmann (Cultural Anthropology [1989]) (both not cited) have shown, is considerably more devious than it appears. It throws into question all the reasons for risking one's life for a social recognition that is in Achilles’ view being actively denied to him in this scene. The heroic code itself is not so much ‘flawed’ here (p. 96) as abused. Similarly, G.’s analysis of Agamemnon's behaviour in the quarrel between him and Achilles in Book 1 in my view over-emphasises Achilles’ immaturity and de-emphasises Agamemnon's inappropriate behaviour, for which he is politely chastised (along with Achilles) by Nestor.

The discussion of Sophocles’ Ajax applies the Achillean model to two characters, neither of whom engage directly in this kind of educational process in the play. In the contest of arms ‘Ajax stages a second round as Ajax and Odysseus compete for the title of Achilles’ moral and ethical successor’ (p. 161). Odysseus is able to move past feelings of enmity to pity (he already feels pity for Ajax in lines 122–6) and to recognition of Ajax’ greatness as a warrior. Ajax, hampered by the expectations of his father and his expectations for his son, cannot move past the need for validation of his Homeric role in single combat and expresses limited pity for Tecmessa. Yet his ‘crisis of disillusionment’ occurs before the play begins. While I would not contest the importance of the recognitions that both characters have to a greater or lesser degree, it seems to me that ‘recognition’ and ‘education’ are not really equivalent in the narrative of this play.

Although Greek myths do not often reflect a traditional rite de passage as defined by Arnold van Gennep (a process of separation, liminality and incorporation), Philoctetes and Hippolytus do trace an educational process for their youthful heroes. Neoptolemus does face disillusionment and a crisis of pity, even if, as I note above, G.’s analysis of the darker sides of Neoptolemus’ evolution is illuminating. For G., Hippolytus is arrested at an immature stage of life. In my view, Hippolytus’ identity as the bastard child of an Amazon plays a more important role here, and I would rate as more significant his remarkable empathy for Theseus in the final scene of the play. He moves quickly and of his own initiative from self-pity and a sense of being wronged to greater pity for his father, generous forgiveness and a new kind of shared dialogue with him.

Neither epic nor tragedy puts a great deal of emphasis on the process of early education discussed in G.’s opening chapter on Cheiron, although expectations concerning this process emerge in the various works. A strictly normative development is not really of interest in either these two Homeric epics or tragedy. These works do invite us to view a problematic process that rarely comes to fulfilment. The book's arguments are strongest when it deeply engages in the complexities of what induces this failure of ethical growth that reflects unstated norms, perhaps worth examining in more detail on their own. Would a tragic audience bring the experience of the Achillean model to its viewing of these plays as they evolved? Problematising further the concept of ‘education’ from the start would in my view enrich an otherwise thoughtful discussion.